Mid to late 70's/early 80's perceptions

[ECW Dan Selby]

Ok here's another quite random one..

Today we have this attitude of "Oh, it's not like the old days where these warriors used to have to wrestle their heavy rear-engined motors with manual gears round a track with little to no protection" looking back in heinsight at anything from pre-83 (ish..?).

My question to anyone who has lived through these different eras of Formula 1 - During the mid to late 70's/early 80's, was the general perception that of "Oh these are nothing on the older cars, the sport's no comparison to how it used to be.", or was it still considered to be cutting edge and still too dangerous?

I just wonder how much of it is rose-tinted glasses, and how much of it was a genuine assessment of how things actually were..

It's a tricky question to word, but hopefully you get me!

Thanks

Selby

[VIVA GT]

An interesting question there, and I suppose it doesn't just mean F1, the whole concept of motorsport has changed significantly since that time, some for the good, some otherwise (in my opinion!)
I've been a motor racing fan since a very early age, avidly watching everything Grandstand could throw at me since about 1960. I attended a few club meetings later on (even cycling to Mallory Park for a Formula 2 meeting practice), and attending every British Grand Prix from 1979 to 1990 (including practice days).
Over the past few years I've not attended many race meetings, and (until this season) had even started to lose interest in watching the Grand Prix on TV.
About twelve years ago I attended my first and only Goodwood Festival of Speed, and was blown away by it all. Being able to walk through the paddock, and look closely at the cars was how I remembered it to be when my Dad took me to race meetings as a child. Seeing star drivers mingling with the crowds to look at the cars was also a major shock. (Finding myself standing next to Emmerson Fittipaldi on one occasion for example!).
I think that nowadays, although F1 is a great technology exhibition, the driving is not so spectacular (although watching some of the in-car footage from Monaco practice yesterday was fantastic!), or at least, generally you are unable to see (or appreciate) what the driver does.
I also feel this effect in other formulae. Touring Car Racing was always a huge passion of mine, especially in the Group A era. Watching a SD1 Rover, or RS500 going through the Craner Curves at Donington for example was a spectacular sight as the car writhed all over the track, meaning that the driver was obviously having to control the car. Nowadays the things corner as if on rails, and have relatively little power (by comparison) that the only way you see overtaking is generally as a result of contact. (This is why I think BTCC stands for Bash The Car Clear!).
Obviously, where there has been a great improvement is in safety (drivers, marshals and spectators). This has to be applauded.
So, there's my ten-pennyworth...

[ECW Dan Selby]

Thanks very much It's really interesting from my view to hear more first-hand accounts of watching/enjoying racing through the years.

So how about when these "new era" of cars (late 70's/early 80's) started coming about? Did you still feel these were genuine hardcore racers? Or was there a sense of "Hmm.. this has gone a bit too far.. racing isn't what it was and isn't about the driver"? Obviously you didn't have the benefit of a crystal ball, because easily in comparison you'd say "It's still very dangerous... in comparison to 2009", but without the crystal ball, how did you view it?

Selby

[zac510]

I see where you're coming from Selby. I notice some of the younger F1 fans look back on the early 90s of F1 (Prost, Mansell, Senna, et al) as the golden years of F1. Those years are a long way from the 70s! It's definitely in the eye of the beholder.

[MGDavid]

agree with all of that Viva - must be about the same age !
I'd sum it up in two words - Professionalism & Business.
We've seen a period of transition, from the days when a privateer with a few well-off mates could run in F1 to a point where to succeed in even lowly formulae you need to be at it fulltime thus need enough sponsorship to be a professional and not have any other job. That has changed a sport into a business, and moreover far too many people in it today expect not just to cover their costs but to make a very good living out of it. The old saying 'how to be a millionaire in motorsport? start as a multimillionaire' just isn't true any more, ask Ecclestone, Jordan, Stewart, Richards, etc.
It's not isolated to motor racing, rugby has also been through this transformation and I'm sure there are many other examples. Fortunately below all this there still exists an amateur level where a guy can build and prepare his own racecar and take part with much enjoyment even if success is elusive. Personally I'm mighty glad I managed the jump from fan to driver, as frankly I despise much of the antics seen in the upper levels.

[VIVA GT]

Yes David, if not the same age, at least the same generation...
I'm glad I also made the transition from watching to competing (and then on to working in motorsport), but even back in the early 80's, I found that running my own Mini Se7en took all of my spare time and money (including keeping my tow car on the road as well!). Plus, I was still competing against more wealthy and better funded competitors who had sponsorship.
(It was great fun though...)

[KA]

I think I know where you're coming from. I'm very much a 'child of the 80's in terms of racing- I've got odd memories of F1 on TV as a kid, but I didn't really start to follow motorsport seriously until I was about 15/16, and went to my first race meetings in 1985 or so, therefore I don't have those memories of 70's F1, or Jim Clark in a Lotus Cortina that an older generation are lucky enough to have- I cut my teeth on Group A Rovers and 635s, Group C sportscars and Mansell v Prost v Senna v Piquet, and compared to the present-day scene, (which I still follow pretty seriously) I wouldn't have missed them for the world.

I've always been a big touring car fan, and as much as I enjoyed the close racing of 2-litre Supertouring (and the present day), I agree with Viva GT about the driving standards, and modern S2000 cars just can't present the same spectacle as a Rouse or Soper taming 500bhp of angry RS500.

Couple this with the sheer amount of one-make stuff around these days, and it's much more difficult to get excited about anything outside historics and sportscars - on the other hand, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Hamilton wringing everything he can out of this year's dreadful McLaren around Monaco this weekend...

[Alan Raine]

I went to my first GP in 1970 and funded it from my paper round money which included getting there by Public Transport. Now I need to go and see my Bank Manager if I want to go again!

Everything in the 70's was much my open and available. For example here is the 1973 GP at Silverstone

[VIVA GT]

Excellent pictures Alan. I too used to get the the British GP the day before practice started and enjoyed watching the teams arrive and starrt to fettle the cars. Admittedly I started about 10 years later than you, so found the atmospheric pictures you took of the cars being worked on 'out of the back of a lorry' even more interesting. By 'my' time they'd started using the pit garages.
One little aside, but could that be a young Charlie Whiting smoking a cigarette in the left of the Brabham picture? I know he worked for the team later on...

[Alan Raine]

A few more from the 70's F1 Paddock.













All of this was available to Joe Public

[VIVA GT]

More excellent stuff Alan.
(Again, could that be a young Ian Flux standing behind Graham Hill's Embassy-Hill car?)

[Alan Raine]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

(Again, could that be a young Ian Flux standing behind Graham Hill's Embassy-Hill car?)

No it's not, but he did work for them.

I stopped going to GP's in the late 80's when it became clear that you were spending more to get less. I was lucky in that I was a marshal for most of the 70's so got a bit closer than a spectator could, although it meant I had to take photos in the lunch break or at the end of the day.

I think the last straw was having already seen the fencing appear in the Silverstone Paddock, creating a "them and us" situation, I turned up the night before a race meeting, with my Formula Ford, to find we had been locked out of the circuit.

A few weeks later I went to Mosport Park in Canada for the World Sports Car race. It was the debut of the Jags and we literally strolled into the pits and took a few photographs.



Nobody stopped us and it was really relaxed and friendly. That's when I realised F1 had lost it for me.

[chunterer]

Pretty much agree with what's already been posted, albeit from a non-competitor perspective. Like KA iI started really getting into watching racing in the mid 80's, although I had been (vague memory) to the odd meeting at Thruxton in the late 70's into the beginning of the 80's as a nipper.

The biggest and worst change for me was when race meetings became almost standardised or packaged. Nowadays you get the same races at BTCC meetings, and as I can't stand the current BTCC, I don't get to see Formula Renault except at the World Series meetings. Upto about 15 years ago there tended to be a variety of support races at 'big' national or International meetings.

Similarly, you can't go and watch GP2 unless you spend a packet and go to the Grand Prix. Think back to when there were 4 GP2 equivalent F3000 rounds in Britain and you had access to the rear of the garages in the Paddock most of the time so could get close to the top soon to be F1 drivers. Autograph hunter's paradise!

I used to love wandering down the back of the garages at a BTCC meeting or at the ETC TT looking at Vitesses and 635's up on jacks with mechanics scurrying about and Walkinshaw and Percy leaning against a road car waving their arms about and laughing away, or, being at the International Trophy seeing Stefano Modena deep in conversation with Mike Earle and James Hunt, or such and such, 2 up, messing about on scooters!! Great days!!

Nowadays you only get that close at clubbies - although I was heartened that Ratel permitted joe soap into the GT Paddock at the TT a few weeks back!! Good on him.

[grantp]

Fascinating paddock photos Alan and the YouTube clips were interesting as well. (I liked the idea of the photographer standing on the side of the track just past the pits exit on one of the YTube clips being listed after the link. Things are just not the same these days ...)

Some familiar faces in the paddock shots but I can't drag names out of memory at the moment. The Tyrrell 'garage' would be, I think, Roger Hill at front centre and Roland Law front right with Robin Coleman (?) behind them to the right of Francois Cevert's car and Jo Ramirez in the shade at the back. So far as I can tell.

The thing is though that I recall going to a couple of the GPs in the late 60s and baulking at the cost of a Paddock Transfer compared to the remaining value of my pocket money and savings. I was probably wrong but back then I thought the racing was more interesting than the cars. Just. How could one think otherwise when the GP drivers, certainly Jim Clark and Graham Hill, would most likely be out in at least one other race on the card?

Still, such days may return once Max's budget cap is beaten into place.

[chunterer]

I'd loved to have been able to attend meetings in the 60's and 70's, well any era before my time!

I've only seen Clark, Peterson et al opposite locking around on footage but it would've been fabulous to see them trackside in the day!

The spectator access in the days you talk about grant right upto the mid-late 80's were pretty good weren't they? I noticed that the access around the Silverstone Paddock/garages area for example went from free roaming to a wire fence appearing with an added centre transfer cost and then quickly onto almost complete exclusion within about 5 years!!

Such restrictions were largely unnecessary and to add insult to injury the tracks put ticket prices up and put on less races. Pah!!!

And what the price of progress.... Thruxton Easter Monday F2 meetings.... plus F3, BTCC, etc sadly missed!!

[Alan Raine]

Originally Posted by chunterer

I
And what the price of progress.... Thruxton Easter Monday F2 meetings.... plus F3, BTCC, etc sadly missed!!

1970 - 4 Formula One races in a year: British GP, Race of Champions, International Trophy & The Gold Cup.

1971 - Formula 2 at Mallory Park, Thruxton, Crystal Palace and Brands Hatch.

In 1972 there were 3 National Formula 3 Championships all well supported.

Entries for Formula Ford races on the GP circuit at Silverstone in about 1973 were at times over 100 cars requiring 3 heats.

There again there wasn't much else to do at weekends. The National sport for a Sunday these days seems to be shopping

[chunterer]

Good one, I've become so jused to how elitist F1 has become that I forgot that there used to be so many F1 races here as well!!

[KA]

Originally Posted by chunterer

.

The biggest and worst change for me was when race meetings became almost standardised or packaged. Nowadays you get the same races at BTCC meetings, and as I can't stand the current BTCC, I don't get to see Formula Renault except at the World Series meetings. Upto about 15 years ago there tended to be a variety of support races at 'big' national or International meetings.

I've always thought that was a really bad move- When that came in for the BTCC package, I was still going to pretty much every BTCC round at Brands, Donington and a fair proportion of Sliverstone, and seeing the same supports at every single one soon got boring, especially once the ICS Historic Saloons were dropped from the programme in favour of yet another one-make fwd saloon crashfest

As a contrast, I've got the programme from the August Bank Holiday BTCC round at Brands in 1991 here- the supports were:

• 750MC Formula Vee
• Multisports (remember those? the sportscar equivalent of Formula First...)
• Champion of Brands FF1600
• 2x BTCC races
• Formula First
• MGCC Challenge

Not the most inspiring of support programmes by any stretch of the imagination, but can you imagine Vees or MG Club racing turning up at a BTCC meeting now? I can remember much better though, such as the BTCC turning up on the programme at major international meetings- ETCC at Donington in '85, F3000, Group C sportscars and even Interserie at Brands around 1989/90.

[chunterer]

Yes there was good variety on the support bill at most races at the time.

The staple programme was 2 x big national races, 2 x single seater feeder series races and then 2 or 3 club races or something like that but they wouldn't be the same everytime out like they are nowadays even if they do pack a lot of races in to a day?

I used to love it when I went to a round of the BTCC and the F3 was on along with FF1600 OR 2000, Thunder Sports or Special saloons, prodsaloons and a well subscribed one-makes like Metro's or R5 GT Turbos and maybe classic like you said KA?

Silverstone or BRDC events tended to have bigger national series on the bill like the season openers, big June meetings or the finals day in October but Thruxton or Donington would have different stuff.